Алистер Маклин - The Golden Gate

‘Yes, Mr Revson. As a forcibly co-opted member of your secret service, I do what I’m told.’

Revson decided against any more deep breathing. ‘Before that, I’d like you to have a word with our Mr Branson. I fancy he has one, if not two, of his cold codfish eyes upon you.’

She turned her head slowly and gave him the full treatment of her luminous green eyes. ‘And you, of course, don’t?’

Revson held her gaze for some seconds, then considered the tarmac of the Golden Gate Bridge. ‘I try to look the other way. Besides, my eyes are not those of a cod. Find out from him on which cable he intends to affix his next explosive charge – and when. Wait a few moments after I’ve left and then make a casual encounter.’

He looked at her again. The eyes were bigger and greener than ever and held an almost mischievous glint. She was smiling. It wasn’t much of a smile, but it was there. She said: ‘You’ll end up making me as devious and cunning as yourself.’

‘Heaven forfend.’ Revson rose and made his way back to his previous seat on the crash barrier, which was less than twenty yards from the demarcation painted line where a man in the middle of the bridge, with a Schmeisser machine-pistol, kept constant vigil. General Cartland, military stride in excelsis, was approaching. Revson stood, lifted his camera and snapped off three quick shots.

He said: ‘May I have a word with you, sir?’

Cartland stopped. ‘You may not. No interview, exclusive or otherwise. I may be a spectator in this damned circus, but I’m no performer.’ He walked on.

Revson was deliberately brusque. ‘You’d better speak to me, General.’

Cartland stopped again. His glacial stare drilled through Revson’s eyes into the wide blue yonder.

‘What did you say?’ Each word was spaced out slowly and carefully. Revson was on the parade ground, a court-martialled officer about to be stripped of insignia and buttons and have his sword broken over a knee.

‘Don’t ignore me, sir.’ Deference now replaced brusqueness. ‘Hagenbach wouldn’t like it.’

‘Hagenbach?’ Cartland and Hagenbach, men possessed of almost identical casts of mind, were as intimate as two loners could ever be. ‘What’s Hagenbach to you?’

‘I suggest you come and sit beside me, General. Please relax and act casual.’

It was entirely alien to Cartland’s nature to relax and ‘act casual’, but he did his best. He sat and said: ‘I repeat, what’s Hagenbach to you?’

‘Mr Hagenbach is very important to me. He pays my salary when he remembers.’

Cartland looked at him for a long moment then, as if to demonstrate that he was not totally like Hagenbach, he smiled. His smile was nowhere near as frosty as his face. ‘Well, well. A friend in need is a friend indeed. Your name?’

‘Paul Revson.’

‘Revson? Revson! James has talked to me about you. And not only once.’

‘Sir, you must be the only person in the United States who knows his first name.’

Cartland nodded his agreement. ‘There aren’t many around. You know he has you slated for the hot seat in five years’ time?’

‘I should live that long.’

‘Well, well.’ Cartland seemed to be very fond of ‘well, well’. ‘A very neat job of infiltration, if I may say so.’

‘The Chief’s idea, not mine.’ Revson stood up and snapped off some more photographs. He said, apologetically: ‘Local colour. You will please not tell any of your colleagues on the Presidential coach–’

‘Colleagues? Clowns!’

‘You will please not tell any of the clowns that you have met me.’

‘I retract my remark. The President is a personal friend.’

‘That is known, sir. The President and the clowns. I would not include the Mayor among the latter. If you want to talk to them privately, take a walk. Your coach is bugged.’

‘If you say so, Revson.’

‘I know so, sir. There’s a tape recorder whirling away busily in the rear coach. You heard it. I didn’t.’

‘I heard it. I’ve never heard of you.’

‘General Cartland, you should join our organization.’

‘You think?’

‘I retract in turn. A Chief of Staff can go nowhere except down.’

Cartland smiled again. ‘To mint a new phrase, tell me all.’

Revson stood, walked away some paces, took more pictures, returned, sat down and told all. When he had finished, General Cartland said: ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘I don’t want. One does not give instructions to the Chief of Staff.’

The Chief of Staff became the Chief of Staff. ‘The point, Revson.’

‘Take your sedentary friends for a walk. Tell them about the coach being bugged. Tell them how to identify their own safe food trays.’

‘No problem. That all?’

‘One last thing, General Cartland. I’m a bit hesitant about this, but as you would say, to the point. It is known – at least I know – that you habitually carry a gun.’

‘Past tense. I have been relieved of it.’

‘You still have your holster?’

‘I have.’

‘I’ll give you a replacement that will fit very snugly into your holster.’

‘You do your homework, Revson. It will be a pleasure.’

‘The bullets are cyanide-tipped, sir.’

Cartland didn’t hesitate. ‘Still a pleasure.’

The evening meal wagon arrived at seven thirty. The occupants of the Presidential coach were close to the north painted barrier, huddled in what appeared to be deep conversation. April Wednesday, under the watchful eye of a guard, made her quiet way towards the ambulance. Revson sat, apparently half-dozing, in a chair. He started as a hand touched his shoulder.

‘Food, my China-bound friend.’ Branson, with his smile.

Revson sat upright. ‘Wine, one trusts?’

‘The best vintages that money can buy’

‘Whose money?’

‘Irrelevances bore me.’ Branson was regarding him with an appraising eye.

Revson stood and looked around him. ‘Your honoured guests along there–’

‘They are being informed.’

‘You might have at least given them time to have their pre-dinner cocktail. Well, not the President’s Arab friends–’

‘Time for that. The food is in hot cupboards.’ Branson did some more appraisal. ‘You know, Revson, you interest me. You might even say you intrigue me. There’s a certain – what shall I call it – intransigence about you. I still don’t see you as a man behind a camera.’

‘And I don’t see you as the man behind the most massive hold-up of all time. Too late for you to go back to Wall Street?’

Branson clapped Revson on the shoulder. ‘On behalf of the President, let’s go and sample some of the superior vintages.’

‘Explain yourself.’

‘Who knows what our Medici friends in the Presidio might be up to?’

‘I hadn’t thought of that. You trust nobody?’

‘No.’

‘Me? A guinea-pig?’

‘Yes. You and Cartland make me uneasy.’

‘A weakness. You should never confess to them. Lead on, Macduff.’

Arrived at the meal wagon Branson said to the white and blue striped attendant: ‘Your name?’

The attendant gave an odd sort of sketchy salute. ‘Tony, Mr Branson.’

‘What wines do you have?’

‘Three reds, three white, Mr Branson.’

‘Array them before us, Tony. Mr Revson here is an internationally known sommelier. A judge of wine, in other words.’

‘Sir.’

Six bottles and six glasses appeared on the counter. Revson said: ‘Just a quarter in each glass. I don’t want to fall off the bridge during the night. Have you bread and salt?’

‘Yes, Mr Revson.’ Tony clearly regarded himself as being in the presence of lunatics.